47 Echternacht & al. • Phylogeny of Syngonanthus and Comanthera TAXON 63 (1) • February 2014: 47–63 47 Version of Record (identical to print version). Received: 7 Feb 2013 | returned for revision: 10 Jul 2013 | revision received: 25 Nov 2013 | accepted: 25 Nov 2013 | published online ahead of inclusion in print and online issues: 27 Jan 2014 || © International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT) 2014 INTRODUCTION Eriocaulaceae are monocots easily recognized by their capituliform inflorescences. The family is pantropical, but generic and specific diversity are concentrated in the South American savannas, especially in the Espinhaço Mountains in southeastern Brazil and on the “Tepuis” of the Guiana Shield. Comanthera L.B.Sm. (Paepalanthoideae) is currently comprised of 41 South American species, with most of the diversity restricted to the Espinhaço Range. Comanthera is divided into two subgenera, C. subg. Comanthera with 26 spe- cies, and C. subg. Thysanocephalus (Koern.) L.R.Parra & Giul. with 15 species (Parra & al., 2010; Parra & Giulietti, 2011; Echternacht & Sano, 2012). Syngonanthus Ruhland has about 150 currently accepted species, the majority occurring in South America (Giulietti & Hensold, 1990), with 15 species in Africa (Phillips, 1997, 1998). Syngonanthus also includes two infra- generic taxa, S. sect. Syngonanthus with about 138 species and S. sect. Carphocephalus (Koern.) Ruhland with 12 species. The taxonomic history of the infrageneric taxa (subgen- era and sections) of Syngonanthus and Comanthera, since the first subgeneric classification (Koernicke, 1863), is summa- rized in Table 1. The species of both genera were then placed in Paepalanthus Mart. and classified within five subgenera. Koernicke (1863) asserted that Paepalanthus subg. Thy- sanocephalus Koern. and P. subg. Eulepis (Bong.) Koern. Phylogeny and taxonomy of Syngonanthus and Comanthera (Eriocaulaceae): Evidence from expanded sampling Livia Echternacht, 1,2,3 Paulo Takeo Sano,2 Céline Bonillo, 4 Corinne Cruaud, 5 Arnaud Couloux2 & Jean-Yves Dubuisson1 1 UMR 7207 CNRS MNHN UPMC Centre de Recherche sur la Paléobiodiversité et les Paléoenvironnements, CP48, 43, rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France 2 Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Biociências, Departamento de Botânica, Laboratório de Sistemática Vegetal, Rua do Matão 277, Cidade Universitária, Butantã, CEP 05508-090, São Paulo, SP, Brasil 3 Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Instituto de Biologia, Rua Ceará s/n Bloco 2D sala 32, Campus Umuarama, CEP 38400-902, Uberlândia, MG, Brasil 4 UMS 7700 CNRS MNHN UPMC Service de Systématique Moléculaire, Département de Systématique et Evolution, CP26, 43, rue Cuvier, 75005 Paris, France 5 Genoscope, Centre National de Séquançage, CP5706, 2, rue Gaston Crémieux, 91057 Evry Cedex, France Author for correspondence: Livia Echternacht, livia.echter@inbio.ufu.com DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.12705/631.36 Abstract Comanthera and Syngonanthus (Eriocaulaceae) are monocotyledonous herbs that occur mainly in neotropical savannas in the Guiana Shield and in southeastern Brazil, with a few species in Africa. Phylogenetic relationships in Syngonanthus and Comanthera are still unresolved and have not yet been assessed using a broad and comprehensive sampling. The present study aimed to test the monophyly of both genera and their putative infrageneric taxa and to evaluate their taxonomy and supporting synapomorphies in the light of a resolved phylogeny. The resulting phylogenetic hypotheses were then used to infer the biogeographical histories of the taxa, especially in Brazil. Molecular analyses based on plastid ( trnL-F , psbA-trnH) and nuclear (ITS) markers using parsimony and Bayesian inference were conducted on 62 species belonging to the ingroup. Syn- gonanthus s.l. (composed of Syngonanthus, Philodice and Comanthera), Syngonanthus s.str. (including Philodice), Comanthera and both of its subgenera were retrieved as monophyletic, strongly supported by molecular and morphological apomorphies. However Syngonanthus sect. Carphocephalus appeared polyphyletic, and its species were embedded within a paraphyletic S. sect. Syngonanthus. Within Comanthera, clades restricted to equatorial savannas appeared to be sisters to clades restricted to southeastern Brazil, especially in the Espinhaço Range, with a disjunct pattern between Bahia and Minas Gerais states. Within Syngonanthus s.str., Andean and African species appeared embedded in Brazilian clades, but resolution and support within the genus must be improved in future research. Keywords Espinhaço Range; Leiothrix; Neotropics; Paepalanthoideae; Philodice Supplementary Material The Electronic Supplement (Figs. S1–S4; Appendix S1) is available in the Supplementary Data section of the online version of this article at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iapt/tax; for alignment, see http://www.treebase.org (study no. 15282).